Bulbs

Bulbs

by Susan Minot

from Poems, 4 a.m., 2002

Even in the dead of winter

he is talking about bulbs.

Walking after dinner with my father.

There is snow, moonlight everywhere.

Cold. The loop is short.

We pass where he planted a hill

in the fall.

Above us stars

in the dark seed sky.

Their scattered pattern is something

we might discuss--

something he knows

from navigating boats.

I look up. It's like breathing ice.

Glitter.

My father's attention, though,

is on the knotty

wooden claws he's pressed in.

He knows where they are

below a packed layer of earth,

then all that snow above.

The tree shadows crisscross

and humps push up more sparkling white

and all he can think of,

walking with his daughter,

is bulbs.

Daffodils? I ask.

Yes, he says, this father of seven.

I planted them in clusers.